Egypt turmoil deepens; militants kill 25 policemen

Marvel Merrd, 11, shows her support on her forehead as more than 300 Coptic Christians from Saint Mary & Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church and other Coptic parishes demonstrate in support of the Egyptian Military in Egypt Sunday, Aug. 18, 2013, in Houston. They believe Coptic Christians in Egypt are being persecuted by the fundamentalists.

The killings, which took place near the border town of Rafah, compound Egypt's woes a day after police fired tear gas to free a prison guard from rioting detainees, killing at least 36. The deaths of the 36 detainees and the 25 policemen take to nearly 1,000 the number of people killed in Egypt since Wednesday's simultaneous assaults on two sit-in protest camps by supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

In Monday's attack in Sinai, the militants forced the two vehicles to stop, ordered the policemen out and forced them to lie on the ground before they shot them to death, the officials said. The policemen were in civilian clothes, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The deaths Sunday of the prisoners, who were captured during clashes the past couple of days around Cairo's central Ramses Square, came as military chief Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi vowed the military would stand firm in the face of the rising violence but also called for the inclusion of Islamists in the post-Morsi political process.

There was initial confusion over how the Sinai ambush had happened, and the officials at first said the policemen were killed when the militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the two minibuses carrying the men. Such confusion over details in the immediate aftermath of attacks is common. Egyptian state television also reported that the men were killed execution-style.

Sinai, a strategic region bordering the Gaza Strip and Israel, has been witnessing almost daily attacks since Morsi's July 3 ouster in a military coup. Military and security forces have been engaged in a long-running battle against militants in the northern half of the peninsula. Militants and tribesmen have used the area for smuggling and other criminal activity for years and have on occasion fired rockets into Israel and staged cross-border attacks.

The detainees killed on Sunday were in a prison truck convoy of some 600 prisoners heading to Abu Zaabal prison in northern Egypt, security officials told The Associated Press. Detainees in one of the trucks rioted and managed to capture a police officer inside, the officials said.

Security forces fired tear gas into the truck in hopes of freeing the badly beaten officer, the officials said. The officials said those killed died from suffocating from the gas. Those officials also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

However, the officials' version of event contradicted reports about the incident carried by state media. The official website of state television reported that the deaths took place after security forces clashed with militants near the prison and detainees came under fire while trying to escape. The official MENA state news agency also said the trucks came under attack from gunmen.

State media also said the people killed and the gunmen belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that Morsi hails from. The officials who spoke to AP said some of the detainees belonged to the Brotherhood, while others didn't. The differences in the accounts could not be immediately reconciled.

The violence added to the ever-rising death toll in days of unrest.

Egypt's military-backed interim government declared a state of emergency after Wednesday's crackdown on the pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo and ensuing street clashes elsewhere in the capital and in other cities and towns across the country.

A curfew was also imposed, turning the capital of over 18 million people into a ghost town after 7 p.m. every night. The military-backed interim government that took over after Morsi's ouster has also began taking harsher measures to cripple the Brotherhood.